Occupations of ancesters before the Census

[Artrat]

Hi all who can help.
How can one find out what their ancestors occupation was from the O.P.R.s. It tells you on the census from 1841, but I am looking for what they did prior to that. Can you find out from any web sites?. 

[Gadget]

Hi Artrat

It varies from parish to parish and the status of the people concerned. Sometimes it is mentioned in the OPRs but not very often - it depended on the Minister/Clerk. Possible sources include wills, local tax, etc. listings and Kirk Sessions minutes and local trade directories. Not all of these are online. It might be worth doing a web search on particular parishes to see if there are any listings   

Other indications are the type of parish they lived in. Here the Old and New Statistical Accounts might help:

http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/sas/sas.asp?action=public&

These will tell you about the parish in general rather than individuals though.

Gadget


forgot to mention MIs - often the occupations are engraved on the tombstones

[Artrat]

Thanks Gadget,

I will try that out.

Artrat.

[RJ_Paton]

As Gadget says the possibilities depend very much on the persons status but if they were involved in specialist occupations there are apprenticeship records for some trades and you also have Guild membership where some records still exist.

Another possibility comes in the form of "Friendly Society" records where people of similar occupations or interests formed insurance groups.

[Artrat]

Thanks For that Falkyrn,

Will keep all this info in mind. No I will write it all down.

Thanks again,

Artrat.

[Gadget]

Hi Artrat 

You don't even have to write it down - let you're printer do the hard work 

Just click print at the top/bottom of this thread and a new window/tab will come up with a nice 'print ready ' copy of our messages for you to print!


Gadget